William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was great world-poet and dramatist, born in Stratford-on-Avon, in Warwickshire. His father was John Shakespeare, a respected burgess, and his mother, Mary Arden, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, through whom the family acquired some property. Shakespeare was at school at Stratford, married Anne Hathaway, a yeoman's daughter, at 18, she eight years older, and had by her three daughters.He left for London somewhere between 1585 and 1587, in consequence, it is said, of some deer-stealing frolic. He took charge of horses at the theatre door, and by-and-by became an actor. His first work, "Venus and Adonis," appeared in 1593, and "Lucrece" the year after. Became connected with different theatres, and a shareholder in certain of them, in some of which he took part as actor, with the result, in a pecuniary point of view, that he bought a house in his native place, extended it afterwards, where he chiefly resided for the ten years preceding his death. Not much more than this is known of the poet's external history, and what there is contributes nothing towards accounting for either him or the genius revealed in his dramas.
Of the man, says Carlyle, "the best judgment not of this country, but of Europe at large, is slowly pointing to the conclusion that he is the chief of all poets hitherto - the greatest intellect, in our recorded world, that has left record of himself in the way of literature. On the whole, I know not such a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, if we take all the characters of it, in any other man - such a calmness of depth, placid, joyous strength, all things in that great soul of his so true and clear, as in a tranquil, unfathomable sea.... It is not a transitory glance of insight that will suffice; it is a deliberate illumination of the whole matter; it is a calmly seeing eye - a great intellect, in short.... It is in delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakespeare is great.... The thing he looks at reveals not this or that face, but its inmost heart, its generic secret; it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it.... It is a perfectly level mirror we have here; no twisted, poor convex-concave mirror reflecting all objects with its own convexities and concavities, that is to say, withal a man justly related to all things and men, a good man.... And his intellect is an unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it than he himself is aware of.... His art is not artifice; the noblest worth of it is not there by plan or pre-contrivance. It grows up from the deeps of Nature, through this noble sincere soul, who is a voice of Nature.... It is Nature's highest reward to a true, simple, great soul that he got thus to be part of herself."
Of his works nothing can or need be said here. Enough to add, as Carlyle further says, "His works are so many windows through which we see a glimpse of the world that was in him.... Alas! Shakespeare had to write for the Globe Playhouse; his great soul had to crush itself, as it could, into that and no other mould. It was with him, then, as it is with us all. No man works save under conditions. The sculptor cannot set his own free thought before us, but his thought as he could translate into the stone that was given, with the tools that were given. Disjecta membra are all that we find of any poet, or of any man."
Shakespeare's plays, with the order of their publication, are as follows: "Love's Labour's Lost," 1590; "Comedy of Errors," 1591; 1, 2, 3 "Henry VI.," 1590-1592; "Two Gentlemen of Verona," 1592-1593; "Midsummer-Night's Dream," 1593-1594; "Richard III.," 1593; "Romeo and Juliet," 1591-1596 (?); "Richard II.," 1594; "King John," 1595; "Merchant of Venice," 1596; 1 and 2 "Henry IV.," 1597-1598; "Henry V.," 1599; "Taming of the Shrew," 1597 (?); "Merry Wives of Windsor," 1598; "Much Ado about Nothing," 1598; "As You Like It," 1599; "Twelfth Night," 1600-1601; "Julius Cæsar," 1601; "All's Well," 1601-1602 (?); "Hamlet," 1602, "Measure for Measure," 1603; "Troilus and Cressida," 1603-1607 (?); "Othello," 1604; "Lear," 1605; "Macbeth," 1606; "Antony and Cleopatra," 1607; "Coriolanus," 1608; "Timon," 1608; "Pericles," 1608; "Cymbeline," 1609; "Tempest," 1610; "Winter's Tale," 1610-1611; "Henry VIII.," 1612-1613.
Wisdom & Quotes
- All that live must die,
- Hamlet, I, ii
- O! that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Hamlet, I, ii
- Frailty thy name is woman!
- He was a man, take him for all in all.
- Hamlet, I, ii
- The apparel oft proclaims the man.
- Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
- Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
- Hamlet, I, iii
- This above all: To thine own self be true,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
- Hamlet, I, iii
- It is a custom
Hamlet, I, iv
- Angels and ministers of grace defend us.
- There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
- Hamlet, I, v
- The time is out of joint; O cursed spite,
- Hamlet, I, v
- Brevity is the soul of wit.
- What a piece of work is a man! How noble is reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!
- Man delights not me; nor woman either.
- The play's the thing
- Hamlet, II, ii
- O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I.
- There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
- With devotion's usage
The Devil himself.
- Hamlet, III, i
- Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
- To be, or not to be - that is the question:
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them.
- Hamlet, III, i
- Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.
- Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of the nature.
- Hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature.
- There's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year.
- The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
- 'Tis now the very witching time of night,
Contagion to this world.
- Hamlet, III, ii
- My words fly up; my thoughts remain below.
- Hamlet, III, iii
- Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
- Diseases desperate grown
Or not at all.
- Hamlet, IV, iii
- There's rosemary, that's for remembrance - pray you love,
- Hamlet, IV, v
- When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
- Hamlet, IV, v
- We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
- One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
- Hamlet, IV, vii
- Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
- Hamlet, V, i
- A politician - one that would circumvent God.
- Alas! Poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio.
- Good night, sweet prince,
- Hamlet, V, ii
- A hit, a very palpable hit.
- A sad tale's best for winter.
- It's a bawdy planet.
- The silence often of pure innocence
- The Winter's Tale, II, ii
- What's gone and what's past help
- The Winter's Tale, III, ii
- Exit, pursued by a bear.
- For you there's rosemary and rue, these keep
- The Winter's Tale, IV, iii
- Sweet are the uses of adversity.
- When I was at home, I was in a better place.
- All the world's a stage,
- As You Like It, vii
- O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful! And yet again
- As You Like It, III, ii
- Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them,
- As You Like It, IV, i
- Can one desire too much of a good thing?
- An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own.
- But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
- Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
- What's in a name? That which we call a rose
- Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
- O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Or, If thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
- Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
- Goodnight! Goodnight!
That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.
- Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
- See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
That I might touch that cheek!
- Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
- Wisely and slowly; they stumble that run fast.
- These violent delights have violent ends.
- O! I am Fortune's fool.
- When he shall die,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night.
- Romeo and Juliet, III, ii
- Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy.
- How oft when men are at the point of death
- Romeo and Juliet, V, iii
- Tempt not a desperate man.
- Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
- Passionate Pilgrim
- Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
The appetites they feed.
- Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii
- You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
- Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus.
- The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
Julius Caesar, I, ii
- Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
- Julius Caesar
- Beware the ides of March.
- But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
Julius Caesar, II, i
- For he will never follow anything
- Julius Caesar, II, i
- Cowards die many times before their deaths;
- Julius Caesar, II, ii
- Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war.
- Et tu, Brute!
- This was the most unkindest cut of all.
- The evil that men do lives after them,
- Julius Caesar, III, ii
- Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
- Friends, Roman, countrymen, lend me your ears;
- Julius Caesar, III, ii
- There is a tide in the affairs of men
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
- Julius Caesar, IV, iii
- His life was gentle, and the elements
And say to all the world, 'This was a man.'
- Julius Caesar, V, v
- This was the noblest Roman of them all.
- We cannot all be masters.
- The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.
- It is silliness to live when to live is torment.
- She never yet was foolish that was fair.
- But men are men, the best sometimes forget.
- Men should be what they seem.
- Item: I give unto my wife my second best bed.
- Take note, take note, O World!
- Othello, III, iii
- O! beware, my lord, of jealousy,
- Othello, III, iii
- Speak of me as I am… one that loved not wisely but
- Othello, V, ii
- If music be the food of love, play on.
- I am a great eater of beef and I believe that does harm to my wit.
- Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time, in you?
- Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
- Why, this is very midsummer madness.
- Men shut their doors against a setting sun.
- Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.
- We have seen better days.
- Come what come may,
- Macbeth, I, iii
- Nothing in his life
- Macbeth, I, iv
- But screw your courage to the sticking place
- Macbeth, I, vii
- If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well
- Macbeth, I, vii
- Is this a dagger which I see before me,
- Macbeth, II, i
- Art thou but
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
- Macbeth
- Methought, I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
- Macbeth, II, ii
- What is done is done.
- So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
- Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Shall come against him.
- Macbeth, IV, i
- He wants the natural touch.
- Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
- Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One, two, why, then ‘tis time to do't. Hell is murky!
- Macbeth, V, i
- Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
- It is an accustomed action with her to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
- Macbeth: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain?
...
Doctor: Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
- Macbeth, V, iii
- Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by and idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
- Macbeth, V, v
- Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
To the last syllable of recorded time.
- Macbeth, V, v
- I bear a charmed life.
- Lay on, Macduff,
- Macbeth, V, viii
- Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
- How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
- The Tempest, IV, i
- We are such stuff
Is rounded with a sleep.
- The Tempest, IV, i
- O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
- Henry V, Prologue to the Play
- Once more into the breach, dear friend, once more,
- Henry V, III, i
- And what have kings that privates have not too,
- Henry V, IV, i
- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
- Nice customs courtesy to great kings.
- O war, thou son of hell!
- I would not be a queen
- Henry VIII, II, iii
- What is the city but the people?
- My nature is subdued
- Sonnet III
- Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
- Sonnet 18
- Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
- Sonnet 18
- The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
- Sonnet 94
- To me, fair friend, you never can be old.
- Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
- Sonnet 116
- Speak low, if you speak love.
- Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
-Much Ado About Nothing, II, iii
- Comparisons are odorous.
- There never was yet philosopher
- Much Ado About Nothing, V, i
- I know a trick worth two of that.
- I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty.
- The better part of valour is discretion.
- Past, and to come, seems best; things present, worst.
- He hath eaten me out of house and home.
- Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance.
- Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
- The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
- A man can die but once. We owe God a death.
- A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
And neither party loser.
- Henry IV, Part II, IV, ii
- Commit
- Henry IV, Part II, IV, v
- Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
- The game's afoot.
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
- Henry V, III, i
- Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more,
- Henry V, III, i
- Delays have dangerous ends.
- Nothing will come of nothing.
- I am a man
- King Lear, III, ii
- The prince of darkness is a gentleman.
- As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods
- King Lear, IV, i
- The worst is not
- King Lear, IV, i
- When we are born, we cry that we are come
- King Lear, IV, vi
- Men must endure
- King Lear, V, ii
- Her voice was ever soft,
- King Lear, V, iii
- The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
- But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
- The Merchant of Venice, II, vi
- All that glitters is not gold.
- The ancient saying is no heresy,
- The Merchant of Venice, II, ix
- Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
- A light wife doth make a heavy husband.
- How far that little candle throws his beams!
- The Merchant of Venice, V, i
- I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
- The quality of mercy is not strained,
- The Merchant of Venice, IV, i
- He is well paid that is well satisfied.
- Modest doubt is called
- Troilus and Cressida, II, ii
- One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
- Words pay no debts.
- Lechery, lechery; still wars and lechery; nothing else
- Troilus and Cressida, V, ii
- Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
- King John, III, iv
- And often times excusing of a fault
- King John, IV, ii
- This England never did, nor never shall,
- King John, V, vii
- Mine honour is my life.
- This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This happy breed of men, this little world
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
...
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
- Richard II, II, i
- For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
- Richard II, III, ii
- Oh, call back yesterday, bid time return.
- Mount, mount my soul! Thy seat is up on high,
- King Richard II, V, v
- I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
- Now is the winter of our discontent
- Richard III, I, i
- No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
- An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
- True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings;
- Richard III, V, ii
- A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
- Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- The course of true love never did run smooth.
- Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
- He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.
- She is a woman, therefore may be wooed;
- Titus Andronicus, II, I
- If one good deed in all my life I did,
- Titus Andronicus V, iii
- O! for a horse with wings!
- There is small choice in rotten apples.
- Kiss me, Kate!
- Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
- The Taming of the Shrew, IV, ii
- They do not love that do not show their love.
- Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.
- Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie.
- They say miracles are past.
- His worst fault is that he is given to prayer. He is something peevish that way.
- O! it is excellent
To use it like a giant.
- Measure for Measure, II, ii
- Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
- What is mine is yours, and what I yours is mine.
Christopher Marlowe